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MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s history with Martin Truex Jr. has plenty of depth, dating back to Truex’s first forays into NASCAR’s national ranks. They’ve grown closer in the years since they were first teammates back in the middle of the 2000s, but Earnhardt has always had an appreciation for Truex’s talent at driving a stock car.
That recognition was so strong that Earnhardt said he lobbied current team owner Rick Hendrick to hire Truex during a time of transition for his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series organization.
“There was a particular time when I think when Rick was making a change on the 5 car, whether it was before Mark (Martin) or after Mark, I’m not real sure, but I like begged Rick,” Earnhardt said Saturday before practice at Martinsville Speedway. “I was like, ‘(I’m) telling you if you get Truex in here, he can do anything that any of these other guys in your company are doing, myself included. I think that he’s got that kind of talent. You’d be surprised at how well he’ll do.’
“And he didn’t have the track record or statistics to be in that conversation, but I tried to push him into that conversation. So, I believed in him since the first race we ran together. …”
So count Earnhardt among the least surprised at Truex’s current tear through the 2017 campaign, a march that’s included a series-best seven victories, a regular-season championship and a surplus of playoff points that make him a sizable favorite for his first premier-series title.
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The two were first closely connected by the Earnhardt family-owned Chance 2 Motorsports, where Truex won two championships in what is now called the XFINITY Series. When Earnhardt suffered burns in a sports-car accident in 2004, his Dale Earnhardt Inc. team turned to Truex as a relief driver making his first premier-series appearance.
From his rookie Cup season with DEI in 2006, Truex’s career has had its share of highs and lows — his six-year wait between his first two wins, his split from Michael Waltrip’s operation and his agonizing first season with Furniture Row Racing, the Colorado-based team he still calls home. The adversity off the track has been gut-wrenching, standing beside longtime girlfriend Sherry Pollex in her fight against ovarian cancer.
Though Truex and Earnhardt went separate ways as on-track teammates after the 2007 season, the two remained close. It’s given Earnhardt an intimate look at Truex’s perseverance.
“The way he ran in our cars in those two seasons when he won the championship and knowing the equipment that he’s been in his entire career and how he performs in it and to me, he’s always overachieved and always at least gotten everything out of the car that the car was capable of getting, if not more,” Earnhardt said. “And so, also, I think he had a lot of years there where he could have allowed himself to get frustrated. I think his ability to remain professional, his ability to be strong-willed and see opportunity down the road says a lot about his personal character.
“He is a guy where if you get a chance to go hang out with him, go deer hunting with him, he’s a tough, tough person mentally. And so, I think that has served him really well. I’m not surprised by his success.”
Truex’s ascension from upstart to championship heavyweight has paralleled Furniture Row’s rise. The Barney Visser-owned organization — a geographical outlier in Denver — made its first postseason appearance with Kurt Busch in 2013, a year before Truex’s arrival.
Truex led just one lap in his first season with Furniture Row, struggling to a career-worst 24th-place finish in the yearlong standings. Buoyed by a new crew chief (Cole Pearn) in 2015 and a technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing in its switch to Toyota in 2016, Truex clawed back into week-in, week-out contention.
With all the pieces in place, Truex won four times last year in a breakout performance that foreshadowed this season’s stunning star turn.
“I think I’m more surprised by the team and how far that team has come,” Earnhardt says. “I think that’s an incredible story. As hard as it is to come into this sport and create a team out of thin air and be an owner that succeeds amongst the teams that are solidified in this sport, it’s so impossible to do that. It’s so hard. There are so much financial resources that have to be poured into it and I think that team should be commended. They found an incredible crew chief and he’s done an amazing job building great chemistry and it’s just incredible to watch.
“Personally, I’ve pulled for Martin to have this chance and this opportunity. And when he went over there I thought this could be the start of something great. And I know I’m not the only one to feel that way. It’s awesome to see.”
That’s a tough admission to make when Earnhardt’s Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jimmie Johnson and Chase Elliott are also locked into the Round of 8, scrapping for one of four slots in the championship phase at Homestead-Miami Speedway next month.
“It makes it harder for me because I want my teammates to do well,” Earnhardt said. “I’m a company man. I want them to win the championship and here’s one of my best friends, regardless of racing, we’re incredibly good pals and it’s hard not to want to see him win it too, you know? I’ve loved seeing him win and celebrate his success. They’ve had such a difficult journey over the last couple of years.”
